If you look up Fiasco in Wikipedia you get this result:

“In English the word fiasco means an absolute, abject or utterly humiliating failure”

Anyway you slice it calREDD was a true fiasco.  But you just know that the California Association of REALTORS (C.A.R.) is going to spin this whole mess in to “this was our plan all along.”  So put on your tin foil hats to protect yourselves from the C.A.R. reality distortion field.

Here’s some questions I’d like answered.

1.  Where’s the 3 million dollars?  I bet you its almost all been spent.  And how many agents did they get to sign up?  Maybe 1,000.  Do the math.

2.  Which begs another question.  How much more money are they going to ask for?   Remember the saying “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.”  Shame on you C.A.R. board of directors if you give these clowns any more money.

3.  Who responsible for this mess?  Is somebody going to get fired? They should. Or are they gonna to throw their vendor under the bus? My guess is these C.A.R. douche bags are so chicken-shit that their MLS vendor will get the blame and everyone else gets to keep their job.

4.  Who is going to control this new calREDD/MRMLS entity?  I’m curious how many seats does the 1,000 calREDD users equate to?  Waaaaaaay too many is my guess.

The man who would be king.

In the King Arthur legend a young boy pulled a sword out of a stone and the village knew that he was the true king.  In our story Art Carter aka, “King Arthur” is going to have to pull a rabbit out of a hat to make this new combined entity (calREDD/MRMLS) a success.

I’ve seen Art do some magic before. He just has to make sure this time that the rabbit doesn’t eat all his “CARETS“.  If you get my meaning.

Prediction:

A good friend once told me that the only reason California is one state (instead of Northern Callifornia and Southern California) is water rights.  So here’s my prediction.

The “merger” will go down as expected, C.A.R. will spin some story to save face.  King Arthur will go after SoCalMLS, and possibly a few others in Southern California and have some success.  But the state-wide MLS train will stop there.  Beyond any existing contracts, no significant Northern California MLS providers will sign up for this new entity (maybe a few tiny associations looking for a subsidy).  One off-shoot is that CARETS may expand, which would be good for C.A.R. members. That’s it. Fin.

Now, if I close my eyes and don’t make a sound, I can hear Russ laughing all the way from Chicago.  : )

So good luck King Arthur.  And stay classy C.A.R., stay classy.

UPDATE:

Check out this FAQ.  It confirms calREDD has blown through 2.5M and wants 750K more.  Classic!